The Holy Grail
by Lee Kyle
Summary: Prequel to Let Me In and Let Me In 2. Abby and Constance enter Atlanta in 1887. Constance catches a vision of a better life, leading Abby to take up an impossible quest. "Two known nothings can produce an undefined something. That's what we will be. Abby divided by Constance: indeterminate."
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1: Camelot**

**Prologue: Constance**

Abby walked toward a farmhouse that seemed empty and dead compared to the star-filled sky above. She wore nothing but a thin nightgown, over which long, matted hair fell. Her face looked hungry, sad, bored.

Abby noticed a girl of about sixteen hiding behind one of the farmhouse's shade trees. She approached the young woman slowly, cautiously. Like Abby, the girl wore nothing but a nightgown. And her hair seemed to be even more unkempt, if that were possible.

At some point the girl became aware of Abby. She motioned the vampire over at once, putting a finger to her lips at the same time. "Quiet," the girl whispered. "They'll hear you."

Abby glanced about quickly, her expression now confused and frightened. She seemed ready to bolt. But the girl reached out a hand and plucked Abby into the spot behind the tree. "I'm Constance," she said, her voice no longer soft. "It's a good thing you made it on time. Peter Parley's coming for tea. He's bringing a live Megalosaurus. It's always best when the food you eat has a sporting chance of eating you first. Are those buttons?"

Constance scooted around Abby and examined her shrift. "I don't understand why they put the buttons where you can't reach them. Jo March sprints faster than a buffalo. She took me for a joint-stool. Susie says she can only come for tea if she brings Hamlet. But _you_ have to bring poison for the play," she emphasized, poking Abby in the chest. "It's always best when someone gets poisoned during tea."

Abby's face grew even more confused. "Who's listening?" she asked.

"This is a birch, this is an elm; no sound can passage through my realm. The doctor claims he retched a place, to stash my parents' foul disgrace. Would you like a gumdrop?" She offered an acorn to Abby. The vampire wavered for a moment, then extended a tentative hand. Constance slapped it away. "You'll ruin your supper," she scolded. Then she put one arm around Abby and the other hand on her hip. "Susie wants to know your name. It's always best when she knows your name."

"Abby," the vampire said, beginning to smile. "My name is Abby."

"Do you want to go hunting with me?" Constance asked.

"Hunting?"

"You may seek it with thimbles, and seek it with care; you may hunt it with forks and hope; you may threaten its life with a railway-share; you may charm it with smiles and soap." She began patting her nightgown. "Did I share away my share? I _swear_." She pinched Abby's cheeks. "We've got smiles, at least. No soap, though. Goodness, you stink worse than I do. Our prey will smell us from a mile. Off with you, Abby. We'll take us two baths. Tomorrow night we stalk."

* * *

The next evening Abby returned, clean and presentable. She found Constance waiting behind the elm tree, picnic basket over her arm. "We've no blank map," she informed Abby. "But I still think we can find our way. Don't foul the rudder." Constance headed down the road. Abby followed.

"Three rules," Constance said. "Number one, you can never laugh at Susie. It hurts her feelings, and it's rude, anyway. Number two, you have to read my favorite books and like them. They're mostly British, I'm afraid, but that's the way it is if you're going to be my friend. Number three, you can never let them get me. Are we clear?"

"Yes," Abby said.

"And what are your rules?"

The vampire took some time to think. "We never talk about family," she said. "It hurts my feelings. You have to do my laundry, and you can't complain no matter how bad the stains are. And you're never allowed to ask me to see the sun."

"Day and night shall cease," Constance observed, "unless we harvest raspberries." She stopped by a clump of bushes and began picking fruit. Abby joined her. They filled a clay pot inside Constance's picnic basket. Abby kept pausing to smile at her new friend. A few times she even giggled.

Constance eventually took Abby off the road to a large stone house. She went up onto the porch and knocked boldly on the front door. After a minute a balding man in his fifties opened to inspect them. He held a lantern high and gazed through his spectacles.

"Constance?" the man inquired. "What are you doing out so late, child? It's one-thirty in the morning."

Constance glanced at Abby and waited. Abby spoke up. "Pardon us, sir," she said. "We were reciting lines in Boxer's Field. Then we wanted to see the stars, but we stayed too long. We took a shortcut to hurry home. A foolish course in the dark, sir; we lost our way. It's cold, and we're so very tired. Might we please come in?"

"Certainly. Come in, come in," the man replied, ushering them through the door. "There are blankets this way. I'll build up the fire." They followed their host through the foyer into a sitting room crammed with overstuffed furniture. "Your parents are sure to be terribly worried, Constance," the man clucked. "How many times must we tell you not to leave your property unescorted?"

"I have Abby with me, Dr. Williamson," Constance said, squeezing the vampire's hand.

"Well, that's fine," the man allowed. "But you shouldn't be out at night. There are some predators perfectly willing to eat people, you know."

Constance's voice turned accusatory. "You told Father I'm the Mad Hatter. _Susie's_ the Mad Hatter. _I'm_ Alice. And Abby," she added, stroking the vampire's long hair, "is Wonderland." She directed her attention to Abby. "You promised," Constance reminded her. "You can never let them get me."

Abby leaped on the doctor, bowling him over. She bit into his carotid artery and he screamed. There was a brief struggle, but it didn't affect the outcome. After thirty seconds the man grew still.

Constance pulled a tea set from her basket and arranged the pieces on the floor. "Save some for me," she insisted, pushing on the monster until she gave way. Constance held a cup against the doctor's neck. When she was satisfied with how much tea she had gathered, she permitted Abby to resume.

Constance used her fingers to comb the dead man's hair. "Your saucer needs cleaning," she said. "The walls have ears; no asylum is free; I see what I eat; I eat what I see. That'll teach you to play with spoons." She took a sip of blood from her teacup. "Now I get it. You want to go to the beach. Don't get sand on your scones, mind you. It's worse than lemon."

Abby broke the doctor's neck, reverted to girl form, and sat smiling at Constance in fascination.

"You need to work on your manners," Constance lectured, pulling out a napkin and wiping Abby's chin. "No use crying over spilled milk. Seems like you ate more than your share of the raspberries. That means I get the other lump of sugar." She plopped a white cube into her teacup, tried to swirl it. "You should really steep the leaves," Constance recommended, swallowing a mouthful. "It's no wonder you forget to bathe."

* * *

Abby waited in the barn behind her friend's house. Constance entered mid-conversation. "You're being very rude," she commented. "Abby's not that kind of girl." She reached the vampire's hiding spot and rummaged in a bag. "Susie insists. Please don't be cross." Constance pulled out three cloves of garlic, a silver crucifix, and a glass jar filled with water.

She raised the crucifix and shoved it in Abby's face. She rubbed the garlic on Abby's arms. She poured the water over Abby's head. "That settles it," Constance concluded. "Susie says you are a very peculiar sort of vampire. Can you see your reflection?" Abby nodded. "Can you turn into mist?" Abby shook her head no. "Can't vampires do their own laundry? You must have Chinamen in Transylvania. Hypnotize me, hypnotize me! Oh, _please_ do, Abby."

Abby took hold of her friend and shared a memory. In this flashback she cowered in a shack next to a wood-burning stove. A man with a thin beard glanced at Abby, then cocked his head as someone banged on the door. "You've got to answer for her, John," a voice insisted. "You come willingly or things are going to get a lot less polite."

Abby surged outside in a wild fury. She bit the first constable's head off. Constance cheered. The second man she tore in half. Constance whooped like it was the start of summer vacation. The last officer Abby ate slowly. Constance gloated through the meal, then stood up, severing the connection. She danced in circles and clapped. "You throw the best parties," she informed Abby. "And the guests _always_ bring something to eat!" Abby's somber expression changed into a grin.

Constance began running about the barn, peeking through cracks in the walls. "They're coming for us, Abby. They always know where we are. Will a boojum make you vanish? I haven't been the same since I vanished. Maybe we could take the train. Susie's jealous. She thinks we'll leave her at the station."

"Susie…" Abby said. Her face became thoughtful. "Susie can come, of course. Susie, _please_ come. It won't be the same without you. I promise to put sugar in your tea. It'll be fabulous. Three huntresses against the world."

* * *

Abby flew into a courtyard surrounded by a tall, wrought-iron fence. She entered a brick mansion and killed the nurse on duty in the lobby. She started heading down the corridors, pulling open door after door, freeing the patients. One surprised orderly got his heart ripped out. Another Abby paused over long enough to eat.

She found the right room, but Constance would not leave. Abby took her by the hand and urged her to get off the floor. Constance stayed in the corner, arms wrapped around her knees. She refused to look at Abby.

"It's time to go," the vampire said, her tone urgent. "Just like we said. The three of us stick together. Come on, Constance."

"I didn't kill Dr. Williamson," Constance repeated. "My secret vampire friend did. She only comes out at night and she has to drink human blood and holy water doesn't hurt her and she sprouts wings. She puts thoughts in my mind. She plays nice with Susie. Everyone is out to get her. No, Abby, you needn't be blue; I'm truly, madly crazy for you!"

The girl broke into a grin, jumped to her feet, and gave Abby a kiss. Some blood transferred to Constance, who licked her lips and frowned. "You know how I like my tea," she complained. Constance held her mouth open until Abby produced a sugar cube and placed it on her tongue. Then she took Abby's hand and led her skipping into the hallway.

"I _told_ you they were out to get me," Constance said, stopping by the body of one of the orderlies. She grasped Abby's other hand and began dancing around the corpse, forcing Abby to do the same. "The snark and friendly jabberwok, consumed the mouse inside the clock; the snark I roasted on a spit, the half rodent inside of it. Sing, Abby! We can't fly unless you sing."

The girls spun around the body, Constance chanting nonsense and urging Abby and Susie to join her. Abby started giggling, then laughing freely, until finally she, too, began singing in time to Constance's inner music. Abby's motions grew thrilled, ecstatic, wild. She gave herself to the dance, flinging her hair and stomping her feet. Eventually they collapsed on the floor, panting and blood-spattered, the undead girl and the insane girl and the imaginary girl. None of them had ever felt so alive.

* * *

**Chapter 1 Survival (Both Kinds)**

Abby twisted her dress, releasing a powder of fine, rust-colored flecks. The dead dust swirled within the car's empty confines, making Constance hoot with delight. A reaction that made no sense given how dark it was. But there was a lot about Constance that didn't make sense. Abby's fellow stowaway had been locked up for a reason.

Constance returned to lying with the top of her head sticking out the door. Abby kept working the bloodstains. After an hour she reckoned Constance had fallen asleep, though it was hard to be sure over the noise of the wheels on the tracks.

_She must be starving_, Abby thought. _She has to be starving._ It worried the vampire that Constance kept making no mention of being hungry. Three days without food, yet Constance seemed as content as during the hour of her deliverance. It wasn't normal.

Abby felt guilty about not bringing food. She had never been good at planning. She had discovered Constance's imprisonment, and in blind rage she had attacked. Consequently the sum of their possessions consisted of an (empty) jug of water, a thick wool blanket, and the clothes on their backs. And Abby's dress was turning to rags as she clawed the material. Wearing blood was bad. Was going naked worse?

Abby reckoned she was about to find out. She couldn't fly with a shirt on, and her dress was a single piece. But they _had_ to get off before the train entered Atlanta. That meant flying Constance out of the car while it was still in motion. Constance had seen Abby fly, but she had never been flown. Then there was the problem of Susie. Abby had no idea how she was going to transport _her_.

Abby got on her hands and knees and crawled toward the door. "Constance?" she whispered. "It's time to wake up."

"Why is the Virgin the only thing Leo has to eat?" Constance asked, opening her eyes. "You don't eat virgins, do you?"

The question jarred Abby. She sat up, the breeze tangling her hair. _Had_ she ever eaten a virgin? Was that worse than eating a married woman? Why did she normally eat men? Did she think killing a woman was worse? Or were men simply out more late at night?

Abby realized Constance was staring at her, smiling. Abby broke into a grin of her own and gave the reclining girl a kiss. "It's time to go," she explained, standing. "I'm going to fly all three of us. You'll face me and put your arms around my neck. What do you think would be best for Susie?"

"The Virgin will swing her out," Constance said, pointing out the door at the southern sky. "She'll go hand-to-hand, see? Virgin to Herdsman to Hercules."

"Excellent," Abby replied, pulling her dress off. This made her quite self-conscious, but Constance obviously felt differently: she let out an excited giggle and removed her own clothing.

"Constance," Abby said, "you need to keep your clothes on."

"Why?" the girl challenged.

Abby opened her mouth, closed it. Why _should_ they wear clothes? Abby certainly didn't need them, and on this muggy evening neither did her companions.

Constance scooped up her asylum coveralls and cast them from the train with a triumphant shout. Abby hesitated for a moment, then gathered her ruined dress into a ball and tossed it after.

"Come on, Susie," Constance insisted. "Get rid of that stupid thing!" She howled with glee as Susie discarded some ridiculous shrift or hoop skirt or petticoat. Now they were a team to take Atlanta by naked storm. At least if they got caught, no one would be surprised where they had escaped from.

Constance wrapped her arms around Abby, and Abby became immediately aware of the weight problem. Constance was a thin girl, but she was still sixteen - four years older than Abby and significantly taller. The vampire would not be able to fly with her for longer than five or ten minutes. At least she didn't have to carry Susie at the same time.

Constance invoked her stars: "Virgo, Ishtar, Ceres, Isis, we are here to cause a crisis; poke Herdsman stomping in his boots, soon gandering our attributes." Then the three girls leapt into the North Georgian countryside.

* * *

Nudity could be a weapon. The imminent sunrise drove Abby to use it. She knelt before a farmhouse door, banged on it several times, and hunched so only her back could be seen. After a few seconds the door opened, followed by a gasp.

"Oh my God," a female voice exclaimed. "Child, what happened?" A hand reached out and lifted Abby's chin.

Abby made eye contact with the questioner, a sturdy woman in her 50's whose face showed both concern and wariness. Abby hugged herself and began rocking back and forth. She looked through the woman, past her, into a farmhouse from another century. She could enter _that_ dwelling without invitation. There were hats to try on. The kitchen smelled of bacon. Sunlight caught her mother's hair...

"What happened?" the farm wife insisted.

Abby hung her head. "Negroes," she whispered.

"Dear God," the woman swore, outraged. She scooped Abby into her arms and bore the vampire inside.

Abby had long discovered that being carried into a person's home was as good as receiving verbal permission to enter. She still waited several seconds, just to be sure - time for the farm wife to seat the vampire in a rocking chair and offer some sort of covering. Instead of accepting the blanket, Abby attacked.

By the time she stood up, the room had brightened noticeably and the urge to seek shelter was becoming overwhelming. Did this house have curtains? How thick were they? And where was Constance? Abby felt rooted in place, terrified of walking around a corner and encountering the first rays of dawn streaking through a window. She began digging at the floorboards, clawing and splintering, exposing the precious cellar.

"Constance, where are you?" Abby cried. There was no answer. Abby shook her head, snatched the blanket from beside the dead woman, and retreated underground.

* * *

Abby jerked awake fourteen hours later, disoriented, nude, nauseous. She hated feeling full. She hated summer. The days were so long, the extra sleep a miserable chore. The need to flee goaded her. Every minute counted if they were going to make it to Atlanta before sunrise.

Yet instead of heading upstairs, Abby pressed tighter against the house's stone foundation, tucked her knees under her chin, and hugged her legs. It had been decades since she had seen so much dawn. First the horizon's edge turned blue, then green: warning. Yellow and orange came next: compulsion. Finally the red band: mockery and madness. Every morning death rose wrapped in rainbow. And because of this – because rainbows cloaked the hateful sun – they inhabited the same category of felicitous creatures as heavy drapes and winter scarves. Rainbows were on her side.

It was her own fault the sun had nearly caught her. Abby had flown from farm to farm, searching for a target that would generate minimal casualties. This proved difficult, as sensing prey inside a home took longer when she wasn't hungry. Plus it seemed she had to kill at least one dog at every stop. And carrying Constance made everything take twice as long. But they had found what they were looking for: isolated house, single occupant, cellar without windows, horse with full buggy.

Abby wished Constance had thrown down some clothing. True, the vampire was covered in blood and needed to bathe before she dressed. But she doubted this was why her friend had neglected her need. Hopefully Constance had at least covered the farmwife, or shut her eyes, or rolled her over. The thought of slinking naked past that glazed expression appalled Abby, especially given that she had killed out of neither anger nor hunger. _She's dead because I insisted on bringing Constance. Why did I bring her? Why did I bring her?_

The urge to get away finally pushed Abby toward the hole in the ceiling. She flew up into the sitting room, was pleased to discover nothing but a bloody patch where the woman's body had been. No lanterns or candles seemed to be lit, but Abby saw better in the dark anyway. She walked through the foyer, drawn toward the kitchen by foul odors and the sound of snoring. There she found Constance.

The unclothed girl sat slumped at the table, passed out in a pool of her own vomit. The farmwife occupied another seat, her body leaning so far back that her hands brushed the floor. Abby looked away before discovering whether or not the woman's eyes were open. A young man sat in a third chair, his heart pierced with knitting needles. A service for five decorated the table. Everyone had been served tea, bread, and jam. None of it had been eaten.

Abby put the pieces together. Five places set. That meant Constance, Susie, Abby, woman, hired hand. For of course the woman would have help; she couldn't run a farm by herself. Why hadn't Abby realized this obvious fact before choosing to strike? Why was her thinking so muddled?

She lifted Constance's head and tried to get her to wake up, but it was useless. A half-empty liquor bottle sat nearby, along with a pouch of chewing tobacco and an empty sugar bowl. Based on the consistency and smell of the vomit, it seemed Constance had chugged the whiskey and swallowed the tobacco, perhaps sweetening the mess with spoonfuls of sugar. Three days without food, and this was what Constance had decided to eat.

Abby fled onto the back porch. How had Constance killed the farmhand? Who had moved the woman's body? Why had Abby brought Constance in the first place? The vampire could have simply left her in the asylum. Certainly she hadn't put any real thought into the decision. Abby loved Constance and wanted her with her. But why? What was there to love?

The sound of mooing stock interrupted Abby's thoughts. She walked out to the barn and found ten miserable cows in desperate need. "If you kill the farmhand," Abby declared, "milk the cows." She grabbed a bucket and a stool, and got to work.

It had been a long time since Abby had tended farm, but she had been born on a pre-Revolutionary frontier where children had been required to do their share of chores. When the vampire finished with the dairy cattle, she shifted to the horses, giving them clean water and rubbing them down. They didn't really like her, but it wasn't the violent reaction she got from dogs. Once the horses were mollified, she carried the milk inside and gathered food in a fresh pail. Then she slopped the pigs, collected eggs from the hen house, and killed a fox.

It seemed each task led to two more, but that was the nature of farming. Abby had forgotten how enjoyable plain, honest work could be. To labor sixteen hours, and collapse in bed exhausted, and feel ashamed of _nothing_ you had done that day! The sleep of a laborer was sweet. Granted, Abby got lots of sleep. She supposed every vampire did. But there was nothing sweet about it.

At two in the morning Abby remembered she was naked. So many tasks she had performed in sight of the animals, yet not one of them had objected to her lack of clothing. None of the animals minded that _they_ lacked clothing. Why didn't nudity bother them?

Did carnivores feel ashamed killing and feeding? Or did they feel a sense of accomplishment? Abby imagined chewing a human bone, gnawing and clinging to it like some kind of trophy. It was a horrifying thought.

She wondered what animals smelled when they smelled her. Blood? Death? Could animals smell nudity? People said you couldn't smell yourself. Abby wished she could meet another vampire, just so she could discover how vampires smelled. She did not want to think undeath smelled worse than death. But she was afraid it probably did.

* * *

Abby grabbed Constance under the armpits and jerked her away from the table. Much to Abby's surprise, this resulted in both girls collapsing onto the floor. The vampire searched for the problem, realized that Constance still grasped the dead man's hand. "Let go," Abby insisted, pawing at Constance's fingers.

"Noting my breast done knitted his chest," Constance slurred, opening her eyes and waving goodbye to the farm boy. "Linger past three and you force coquet tea," she added as Abby dragged her out the back door. "Where's Susie?"

"Down by the pump," Abby answered. "Goodness, you stink. Why did you drink so much?"

"Liberal bourbon cleaves groves of mugwumps. Pull, man!" Constance encouraged as Abby struggled with her weight. "Pull _man_. Pullman. Pull Man. Is he an above-the-track or below-the-track sort of fellow, that's what I want to know."

The girls fell to the ground again, but this time they were next to the well. Abby had positioned supplies: buckets, towels, soap. Lots of soap. She began working the hand pump, feeling the deep water vibrate against piston and lever. Constance lay on her back, staring at the stars.

"Dame Defarge knew how to knit," Constance noted. "She wielded watch and radically revolved. But 'twas a gullible guillotine she orbited. I don't think she ever figured that out."

"I don't think she cared," Abby replied.

Water began gushing from the spigot. Constance leapt into the stream at once, and at first Abby thought the washing would transpire quickly. Then Constance began digging at the ground with her nails. Water poured through the rills. Constance dug harder. She formed mud, fashioned it into a pie, and laid it aside. She began making another, insisting that Abby keep working the well.

After the tenth pie Abby interrupted. "Constance, we have to..." A glob of mud struck her chin.

"Susie says it's not right leaving you out," Constance pronounced, and cast another clump at Abby's head.

The vampire approached the edge of the mud pit, weighing her target. "They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care," Abby said, reaching down.

"They pursued it with forks and hope," Constance replied, leaning toward her pies.

"They threatened its life with a railway-share," Abby added, filling her hands with ammunition.

"They charmed it with smiles and _soap_!" they yelled, opening fire.

In the first stage of the battle Abby held every advantage, for she circled outside the mud while Constance and Susie struggled to move. But then Constance gained a lucky handhold and dragged the vampire into the mire. Abby eventually gave up, rolling in the muck, carving patterns, using her superior strength to deepen the bog while her friends pumped. They constructed forts and decorated them, engaged in an epic "snowball" fight, made pig noises till they collapsed laughing.

As they lay on their backs making mud angels, Abby asked, "Why doesn't being naked bother you?"

Constance pointed at the sky. "If Virgo likes bread so much, maybe Bootes _did_ kill the Baker. That makes Snarks effervescent."

"What's worse," Abby pressed, "being naked or being bloody?"

For answer the insane girl began piling mud on Abby.

_Why does being naked make me feel dirty? Why doesn't she care?_ Constance could probably walk naked down Main Street and not care. Abby hated being bloody. Nudity was just as bad, though. The undead girl wondered if she hated bathing simply because it required her to undress.

After ten minutes only Abby's arms, feet, and head remained exposed. Constance stroked the hair out of Abby's eyes, then cupped the vampire's cheeks and recited:

"You hide it in cellars, you coat it in stew,

You constrict it with burlap and crepe;

Still keeping one principal object in view -

To preserve its symmetrical shape."

Abby smiled. "Let's go to Atlanta," she said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 Coca-Cola**

Abby awoke, opened the trunk lid, and hopped out into a well-appointed hotel room. She glanced through the drapes and discovered herself to be five stories above a gas-lit city street. A horse and buggy drove by, then another, bumping over cobblestones and rails.

The clothes Constance had put on at the farmhouse were strewn across the floor. Abby searched in vain for a note. Obviously they were in Atlanta, but why had Constance chosen this particular hotel? It seemed expensive, and they didn't have much money. Abby changed into an oversized farm dress and snuck into the hallway.

Six doors to her right, four to her left. How big was this place? It even contained an elevator, a machine Abby had never encountered in the South. She chose to use the stairs, making her way toward a ground floor filled with music and laughter and cigar smoke. Abby froze at the bottom of the stairwell. She had no intention of entering such a huge crowd, especially alone. A side exit beckoned. She raced for it and shot into a warm, brick-lined alley.

For several minutes Abby leaned against the wall, enjoying the solitude, catching her breath. A wagon entered the alley. A boy of about sixteen stepped through a separate hotel door and began arguing with the driver. Eventually the wagon continued on its way past Abby. It was then that the boy noticed her.

He approached confidently at first, then grew hesitant as he got closer. This section of the alley was quite dark, and Abby knew the boy could scarcely see her. She could see him fine, however – tall, thin, light brown hair, wearing an apron and spectacles.

"The common room seemed a bit full for my taste," Abby offered. "I hope you don't mind my catching the evening air?"

"Miss Abigail Wilson?" the boy inquired, making a slight bow. "Your sister has told me much about you. My condolences on your recent loss."

"Thank you," Abby replied. Constance had conversed with this boy? And without getting carted away by the marshals?

"Please allow me to introduce myself," the boy continued. "Edward Inman, Assistant Proprietor of Kimball House."

"Pleased to meet you," Abby said. "It is a fine hotel."

"Best hotel in the South," Edward noted.

"I don't doubt it. And what, pray tell, does the Kimball House charge its guests for room and board?"

"I put you and your sister up for fifteen dollars."

"A week?"

"Pardon me, Miss Wilson. Fifteen dollars per day."

Abby looked away, chagrined. They had left the farmhouse with just over eighteen dollars. Had Constance already spent almost all of it?

"I noticed some displeasure," Abby commented, nodding toward where Edward had conversed with the driver.

"Just hotel business, Miss Wilson. Nothing to concern yourself with."

Abby pressed. "Tell me about it."

The boy looked at her funny. "If I may be so free, Miss Wilson, your sister intimated a medical condition on your part. One that does not permit contact with sunlight."

"That's correct."

"She also said this condition, combined with the recent loss of your mother, has engendered certain irregularities, and that we should please make allowances."

"Well, I'm a twelve-year-old girl talking to a strange man in an alley at night. Does that require allowances?"

Edward laughed. "I suppose so," he granted. "Fulton's a dry county. That wagon was supposed to supply our lounge for the evening. But no shipments have come in, and I'm the one who's going to get blamed."

"Dry?" Abby asked.

"No alcohol. Wets may take the council this fall, but that doesn't help me tonight."

"Where's your shipment?"

"Driver said the trains never came in. We've a marshal who gives warning before a station raid. Whiskey from Chattanooga probably got stopped by telegraph at Marietta. But the Augusta run would've been halted by hand signal. That's the misery of it. I know they're close."

"The Augusta track?"

"Next block," Edward explained, pointing south. "Runs east all the way to the coast."

Abby nodded and vanished. The gas lamps were a nuisance, but within ten minutes she was able to take to the air. The Kimball House looked as impressive from the sky as it had from inside, a daunting red structure occupying an entire city block. Abby followed the tracks two miles till she reached the stationary train, then settled onto the roof of its final freight car.

The search would have proved fruitless without her ability to see in the dark. As it was, it still took her almost an hour to find the right car. She removed a case of liquor, thought about it, then removed two more. She transferred her loot to a cemetery she had passed over, stashing two cases in a mausoleum. Then she returned to the hotel with her prize.

Edward cried out in relief when he opened the alley door and found Abby bearing eight bottles of rum.

"A week's room and board," Abby insisted as Edward attempted to relieve her of her burden.

This surprised the boy, but he recovered quickly. "We've already paid for these, you know. Three days."

"Our rooms would just sit empty," Abby countered, "so it's not like you're losing cash on us. Six days."

"I introduced your sister to half of Kimball House. Four days."

"Then you were doing your job," she said, handing the case over. "Five days." She plucked a bottle for herself before he scooted inside. "And I want thicker drapes."

When Abby returned to her room she found Constance naked and passed out on the floor. The vampire lifted her friend onto the bed and tucked her in. Then she settled by the window and watched Atlanta go to sleep.

* * *

Three nights later Abby took a bath, put up her hair, and squeezed into the suffocating black evening wear Edward had procured. She crept down the stairs, each step slower than the one before, noises and smells from the common room daring her to retreat. _I can do this_. Hadn't she assailed General Howe's troops in the Long Island fog? Spread panic among Santa Anna's lieutenants? Stolen chloroform for the 63rd Tennessee? Surely she could handle a Southern social.

Abby pressed into the crowd, afraid someone might see through her mourning clothes. The uniqueness of her attire did draw attention: polite nods, sympathetic glances. But no one tried to corner her. She discovered myriad public spaces, and that one need not be a guest to spend the evening socializing at Kimball House. Indeed, the entire city of Atlanta seemed convened in this hotel. Abby couldn't think of a worse place for maintaining a low profile. Why on earth had her "sister" chosen it?

In a parlor Abby found a black-enshrouded Constance surrounded by six doting men. Edward Inman led the band of admirers. He noticed Abby, but quickly returned his gaze to the object of his affection. Ten girls circled in the corners, annoyed at the lack of attention they were receiving and trying to figure out what to do about it.

"Abby," Constance interrupted. She hastened to the vampire's side, embraced her, and addressed her new friends. "Please allow me to introduce my sister, Miss Abigail Wilson."

There followed several minutes of generic pleasantries. The condolences of all were gratefully appreciated. Their mother had suffered for years, rendering her passing tragic but not unexpected. The first Kimball House had burned down. The new edifice had been given the same title in honor of the original namesake, but Mr. Kimball had retired to Chicago and did not own the current structure. No, the Wilson sisters had never visited the New Mexico Territory. It could be weeks or longer till their father summoned them.

Throughout these exchanges Abby kept her attention fixed on Constance and Edward. The boy kept pretending to have never met Abby, which made sense: it wouldn't do to inform Atlanta that a twelve-year-old female guest of Kimball House was keeping its illegal lounge stocked with illegal liquor. The real question concerned Constance's transformation. How was she acting so normal? Did the opportunity to flirt with boys put her on her best behavior? Did she prefer cities? Had she simply decided to stop being crazy?

The group eventually planted Abby in an overstuffed high-back chair and returned to their discourse. Constance quoted Shakespeare:

"Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;

Being vexed a sea nourished with lovers' tears:

What is it else? a madness most discreet,

A choking gall and a preserving sweet."

"It is this speech's placement that one must keep in mind," Constance explained. "It's in Act One, Scene One, before Romeo has even met Juliet. Now consider what Tennyson does with it." She quoted again:

"Sainted Juliet! Dearest name!

If to love be life alone,

Divinest Juliet

I love thee, and live; and yet

Love unreturned is like the fragrant flame

Folding the slaughter of the sacrifice

Offered to gods upon an altarthrone;

My heart is lighted at thine eyes,

Changed into fire, and blown about with sighs."

"The speech is transformed through transposition to a later stage of the story. There is still fear of unrequited love. But no vexation, no bitterness. Juliet has reached back in time, remaking Romeo before she even meets him. A realized eschatology of the heart."

None of this made sense to Abby. Everyone else in the room, however, seemed to understand it just fine. The conversation moved to related literary topics: Byron's reliance upon Mozart, contrasting views of hell in Dante and Milton, Spensor's influence upon Keats. Abby realized this was no random collection of visitors. These were college students, teachers, writers. They had heard of Constance's genius. And they had come to benefit.

As Abby marveled at the improbability of it all, a growing unease began cramping her abdomen. She felt trapped and conflicted, as though someone in the crowd were bleeding profusely, but she didn't dare transform in front of so many. There was a house she wanted to enter, _needed_ to enter, but knew she couldn't. She had to keep her meal down, but felt like throwing it up. She wanted to shout, but had to be silent. And what would she shout? _I want to see the sun rise. I want to have babies. I want clothes no one can see through. I want to smell nice._

Abby's stomach spasmed, casting her onto the floor. She curled into a ball, squeezed her eyes shut, and started yelling, "I want to smell nice, I want to smell nice!"

Strong arms bore her from the room. She moaned and wept, but made no effort to resist the person carrying her. It got quieter, and she felt herself laid upon a bed. That's when she broke down for real.

The three older women who had helped Constance move Abby did not seem terribly disturbed by the vampire's behavior. It was nothing to be alarmed about, they assured Abby. She was only twelve, after all, and battling an illness that condemned her to perpetual night. Her mother had just died. She had recently arrived in a strange city. In any event, periodic hysterical fits were an unfortunate feature of the female condition. Women had been cursed in child-bearing.

Abby thought as she fell asleep: _Perhaps women had been cursed in childbearing. But some were cursed worse than others._

* * *

A week later Abby was aroused by a banging from the hallway. She sensed the sun was almost down, so the danger was minimal. Plus four nights ago they had relocated to a room with north-facing windows. The monster didn't care, though. It had been awakened during daylight. It was hungry. Another day or two and Abby would have no choice but to feed. Perhaps she should solve all her problems at once by eating whoever had been stupid enough to wake her.

"Abby, please," a voice called, and she realized it was Edward.

The vampire grabbed a wide-brimmed hat, bundled a winter cloak about her shoulders, and cracked the door. She discovered Edward and Constance hand-in-hand, an observation that at first annoyed her. Then she realized Constance was muttering to herself and chewing her fingers. Abby ushered Constance inside and shooed Edward away.

Constance began pacing in short, rapid steps. "There's progression in the fourth measure," she noted, "but I don't know enough geometry to work out the harmonic division." She seized Abby's shoulders and began shaking her. "You have to teach me the math. I can see the patterns. They're all right there. I need to write them down."

Abby escaped to her closet and procured a bottle of rum. She also lit a cigar. As Constance drank and smoked, she started calming down. Enough for Abby to get her to lie on the bed, anyway. The vampire grasped Constance's face and shared a memory.

Nighttime had settled on a frontier cabin. Abby waited in a rocking chair, expectant with glee, as Betsey changed Rebecca's diaper. Then Betsey did the impossible: she picked up the baby and laid her in the vampire's trembling arms. Abby cuddled the infant, sang every song she knew, tears pouring down her cheeks and drenching her niece's thin brown hair. And the best thing about it was that Betsey knew. She knew what Abby had done to their mother, what she continued to do in the deep forest. Letting Abby rock Rebecca was pure grace. Abby didn't deserve it. She hadn't earned it. She could never repay it. It was the most precious moment in the vampire's life. It was the discovery of unconditional love.

Once Constance had fallen asleep, Abby dressed properly and raced downstairs. Edward was not hard to find.

"What happened?" Abby demanded.

"Father required I join him at the warehouse today, so I'm not entirely sure. I returned to find Constance in the lobby, distracted and...agitated. Normally I take her for a walk in the morning..." he added, blushing.

"You're saying she's acting this way because she _missed_ you?"

"Well, begging your pardon," he replied, raising his hands and taking a step back, "if my absence were the cause, one would think my return might effect _some_ relief on her part. And I _am_ sorry about waking you. Miss Constance made it thoroughly clear that you are to be left undisturbed until nightfall. Said you would bite my head off, actually. But I decided, given the unique nature of our arrangement, that a doctor might not be your preferred course of action?"

"No, you did right. Thank you, Edward. And my sister _is_ fond of you. Says there are precious few men who understand literature, math, _and_ business. But what happened to her? That's what we need to figure out."

"If I may be so bold," he suggested, "part of the problem might be that she had no money."

"What difference does that make?"

"We patronage the local pharmacies on our walks. I talked to the soda jerk down the street. He says Constant ordered soda, but had no money. He says it upset her."

"Why didn't she have money?" Abby demanded. "Haven't I been working hard enough?"

"Yes, of course, Miss Abigail. Kimball House customers have been very pleased with our...stock. Even my father's noticed. But begging your pardon, I didn't know your sister was without spending money. I would have given her some. I _have_ been buying you both presents, haven't I?"

Abby considered this. A lot of gifts had come their way, certainly. And her every request had been met.

"Come on," Abby said. "Let's get a soda."

The nearest pharmacy was only a block away. The shop was about to close, but Abby knew they would never turn away Edward Inman. The two of them went straight to the soda fountain. Edward ordered a Coca-Cola. Abby watched the soda jerk pour dark brown syrup in a glass, then mix it with bubbly water. Edward handed the man a nickel and passed the drink to Abby.

"Everyone's switched to this since the city's gone dry," Edward explained. "It's the only thing Constance ever gets."

Abby sniffed at the concoction. "It has sugar in it?" she asked.

"A lot of sugar, I think."

Abby nodded. That would account for Constance's interest in the drink. But not for the changes in her behavior. "Edward," she said, pointing to the glass below the counter. "There's an advertisement for Coca-Cola. Will you get it for me, please?"

A minute later the soda jerk handed Abby the flier:

COCA COLA

SYRUP AND EXTRACT

For Soda Water and other Carbonated Beverages

This intellectual beverage and temperance drink contains the valuable tonic and nerve stimulant properties of the Coca plant and Cola (or Kola) nuts, and makes not only a delicious, exhilarating, refreshing, and invigorating beverage, (dispensed from the soda water fountain or in other carbonated beverages), but a valuable Brain Tonic, and a cure for all nervous affections - sick headache, neuralgia, hysteria, melancholy, etc.

The peculiar flavor of COCA-COLA delights every palate; it is dispensed from the soda fountain in same manner as any of the fruit syrups.

J. S. Pemberton, Chemist, Atlanta, GA

"Brain Tonic," Abby quoted. "Coca-Cola is a Brain Tonic."

She folded the advertisement and placed it in her bosom. Then she informed her business partner of their next venture: "I think it's time Kimball House obtains itself a soda fountain."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 Idylls of the King**

Abby loved it that people gossiped about her. It meant she could join her fellow hotel guests for dinner and receive no unpleasant questions about her family, her illness, or her refusal to eat. Instead she could relax and enjoy the marvel that was her sister.

"The Holy Grail," Constance explained to Abby and ten other listeners. "According to Tennyson's idyll, if a man can touch or see the grail, he will be healed at once. That is the assertion, at any rate. Note that you don't have to possess it or drink from it. And the distinction between touching and seeing is interesting, too. A blind man can't see, but he can touch, yes? So presumably you can touch it in a lightless cave, and still be healed.

"But a couple pages later there's no more talk of touching. Percivale's sister beholds the grail, and she tells her brother that he and his fellow knights should endeavor to see the vision also, that all the world might be healed. That's why I'm assuming Tennyson has something allegorical in mind. Otherwise how is the whole world supposed to be healed if it's just the knights of the Round Table that see the grail?

"The grail eventually appears to them at Camelot, but it's covered in luminous cloud, so I guess they see it without actually seeing it. It doesn't seem to count as real seeing anyway, because they all vow to go on a quest to see it for real. And I really am struck by the specifics of the vow. Not a quest to obtain, or drink from, or even touch. Just a quest to see. And they don't even care about the alleged healing benefits. They're knights. Quests are what knights do. Or so they think."

Abby tried to pay attention, but Malory's version of the story kept distracting her. She imagined "the cracking and crying of thunder" transpiring right here in the Kimball House dining hall, accompanied by "a sunbeam more clearer seven times than ever they saw day." The Holy Grail entered, covered with white samite. And it magically gave every guest such meats and drinks as he or she best loved in this world. Abby wondered if the grail would grant her a chalice of fresh Indian blood, or if it would invoke the impossible: human food a vampire could actually chew and swallow and keep in her stomach.

People began leaving the table. Had Constance finished? Abby felt embarrassed, but hadn't Malory already told the tale? What was the point of retelling it?

Abby got up and followed the group into the parlor. It was getting a little bit easier each night, this bold entrance into a crowded room. Townsfolk were swelling their numbers, Edward among them. Most drank Coca-Cola from the hotel's new soda fountain. _We fought for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, _Abby thought, _and we got it: brain tonic for every man._

She settled onto a plush couch, closed her eyes, and listened to the banter: political fights between wets and dries, fluctuating cotton prices, the hopeful opening of Georgia School of Technology next fall, the installation of electric lighting in New York. A random female voice commented, "Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent, for beauty is a witch against whose charms faith melteth in blood."

"Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2 Scene 1," Abby called out in her stage voice. She glanced about like she had awakened in a strange place, a bit mystified that she had injected herself into the conversation.

Five or six people had heard her, and they, too, were surprised that she had spoken. A young man gave her a quizzical look, then offered, "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on."

"Othello, Act 3, Scene 3," Abby replied, standing that she might project properly. "My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, to say as I said then!"

It took the room a moment to realize Abby was daring them to oppose her. Then they took up the challenge, correctly guessing Antony & Cleopatra Act 1. But they couldn't get the scene, compelling Edward to pronounce, "I would say that's Miss Abigail, three, Kimball House, nothing."

Someone called out, "Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy."

"Romeo & Juliet," Abby said, "Act 1, Scene 5. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

They knew this line came from Act 5 of Macbeth, but couldn't get the scene, so again the point went to Abby. The game went on for a quarter of an hour, Shakespeare quotes flying across the parlor like cannon balls: We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come unbutton here.

The fourteen adults got many of them right. They were a literary crowd, after all, plus they had Constance. But gradually they realized they had no hope of beating Abby. Eventually a young woman offered, "How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of." Instead of identifying the quote, Abby switched into Ophelia:

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;

The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck'd the honey of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;

That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

And, O, what Abby had seen! Noble minds overthrown, yes, but much more: plunderings of invaders and savages; plagues of smallpox, yellow fever, consumption; America shooting the flower of France, Britain, Mexico, herself; droughts, floods, fires, mining accidents; childbirth, merciless slayer of so many young mothers. And lurking in the shadows of all these miseries, the vampire herself: nibbling edges, picking remains, gleaning the refuse of hell.

Abby hadn't chosen to be a vampire. Her victims didn't care, of course. Why should they? It mattered to Abby, though. She had not chosen darkness as her portion, though the same could not be said of everyone. She commenced Lady Macbeth's invocation:

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry 'Hold, hold!'

In her blackest moments Abby craved such reduction to blind, sexless substance. Eyes too palled to weep over the murders she ministered. Blood too thick to worry the stinking, undead flesh through which it crawled. But though the spirits had stolen Abby's milk, they had not replaced it with gall. The vampire's core desire remained intact: feel womb and bosom swell, deliver a live child, suckle her newborn at a joyous breast.

One day. She had been a woman one day when her uncle had ruined those dreams. Now Abby would never be bought, or possessed, or enjoyed. And even if a boy came to love her, what could she offer him? A hopeless consummation, nothing more. Yet her soul ached for the impossible, a gentle lover who would play for her stolen maidenhood and make her feel like she could see the sun. She took up Juliet's lines:

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites

By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,

It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,

And learn me how to lose a winning match,

Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:

Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,

With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,

Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Abby froze when finished, just as the riverboat troupe had trained her so many years ago. It was only then she noticed the crowd: eighty people crammed into the parlor, even more observing from the hallway. How long had she been performing? How many speeches had she acted? The audience was crying, blinking, shaking their heads. Then the applause began: deep, shoulder-shaking waves of approbation that set the room spinning. Abby bowed with a quick smile and made to escape.

Before she vanished, however, she heard a beaming Constance turn to Edward and declare: "_That's_ my sister. Told you she was smarter."

* * *

It was almost five o'clock in the morning when Abby approached Kimball House, a case of gin in her arms and a smile on her face. For six weeks she had been transporting product purchased by Edward. Tonight, however, she had finally pushed through her own deal, using her own money. Edward would have to do more than simply accept delivery. This was _Abby's_ gin. Edward was going to have to pay for it.

Abby began opening the hotel's side entrance, but a hand seized the door and stopped it in her face. Mr. Hugh Inman loomed out of the shadows. This was the one man in Atlanta Abby had been avoiding, and now that she was meeting him she understood why. The confidence of his bearing, his seeming ability to surprise a vampire - it made Abby wish she were wearing more clothing.

Mr. Inman waited, studying Abby's eyes. People who met her in the dark normally grew uneasy. This man should be getting fidgety as his survival instinct urged him to flee. He remained quite calm, however. And what did he expect to discover? Abby could see. He could not.

"They say there's a wild animal preying on the shantytown," he commented. "That's smart, only eating Negroes. Think the animal will stay smart?"

Abby nodded.

"I think as long as predators are smart, the advantages of having them around can outweigh the disadvantages. Here, let's get that inside." Mr. Inman led Abby into the lounge kitchen, where she set her merchandise on a counter.

"Your mother is dead," Mr. Inman observed.

"Yes," Abby said.

"Your father is dead."

From the way he said this, Abby could tell he already knew the answer. She reckoned it would be folly to lie. "Yes," she replied.

"Would your sister make a suitable spouse to my son?"

"No."

"Would your sister make a suitable spouse to _anybody_?"

"No."

"How much for the case?" he asked.

It took Abby a moment to process the change in subject. She had planned on selling to Edward. Edward's father, however, was the richest man in Georgia. He might offer more.

"Fifty dollars," Abby said, a bit embarrassed at suggesting such a starting price. But that's what bargaining was all about.

Mr. Inman withdrew from his wallet a fifty dollar national gold bank note, a form of currency Abby had never seen, and handed it to the vampire. Abby took the money, thoroughly flummoxed. _Next time_, she thought, _I'm asking for a hundred._

"I also got you this," Inman added, withdrawing a small package and handing it to Abby. Then he started pulling bottles from the case. "Gin?" he asked. "That's good. We've been out for weeks."

Abby retired to the stairwell and opened her present. It was a bottle of perfume. Did her body really smell, then? Or had Mr. Inman simply heard of her hysterical fit? He certainly seemed to know plenty about Constance, despite having never met her.

Abby considered leaving. But she couldn't take Constance away from the soda fountain. And although Edward's father had no interest in seeing his son married off to one of the Wilson sisters, he clearly intended the girls no harm, either. Abby just had to get Constance to back off.

* * *

Why was the stupid, glowy, floaty thing called a grail, anyway? Why not just call it the vain, useless artifact that skids down a sunbeam and ruins everybody's lives? Abby imagined visiting King Arthur's court, inventing baseball, and knocking the blasted grail back where it came from.

It was three in the morning. Abby had been laboring in Tennyson since midnight. No doubt this would make Constance very happy. The vampire, however, couldn't get Malory out of her head. The story of Arthur had already been told. Why was Tennyson retelling it?

Abby's "remake frustration" had put her in such a foul mood, she was beginning to criticize the entire grail myth. If the grail could heal, why did no one care, and why was no one healed? Why could the grail only appear when everything in the kingdom was going well? So there was something for it to mess up? Why did Arthur's knights seek the grail in the first place? What benefit did they hope to gain? It seemed the only people allowed to see the grail were those who didn't need to. And it wasn't like there were any women in the story. How could people even call it a romance?

That evening Abby expressed her annoyance in the parlor. "I like Malory better than Tennyson," she confessed. "Why did Tennyson even bother?"

It was an average-sized group that listened to Abby's query: Constance and Edward, plus four men and six women, some guests, some Atlanta residents.

"Malory's English is dated," a young lady commented.

"There are modernized versions," Abby countered.

"Tennyson does change the story," Edward noted. "Arthur's absence when the grail appears is a pretty major alteration."

"Exactly," Abby said. "Why does he have to change it? Why can't he just leave it the way it is?"

"I'm curious," a man offered. "I've only heard such comments from older readers."

Constance interrupted. "Abby's an old soul. Reading since she was three, plus year's of stage work. We all have our favorite versions, don't we?"

"But that's the point," another man said. "Our stories are versions."

"I don't understand," Abby admitted.

A woman came and sat beside Abby. "Malory wasn't the first to write the story of Arthur. Robert de Boron and Chretien de Troyes composed versions of the grail saga centuries before Malory was born. He based his work on earlier writings like these. And there were probably generations of oral tradition before Malory's sources were recorded. So no one knows who came up with the grail story first. Maybe there really was a King Arthur."

"None of Shakespeare's plays are original," Edward added. "He just reworked other people's material. Julius Caesar from Plutarch, King Lear from Geoffrey of Monmouth. That sort of thing."

Abby grew quiet. The conversation moved on to other topics. She felt thoroughly embarrassed, as though everyone else in the world knew this idea of "sources," and why didn't she? So many Shakespeare plays she had performed. She had always thought Shakespeare had created his stories himself. Why should she think otherwise? None of the actors on the riverboat had ever mentioned sources. None of them had cared.

Malory was a remake, just like Tennyson. What if _everything_ was a remake? What if there were _no_ new stories, and the stories she thought were new only struck her that way because she hadn't read enough yet? What if the day was coming when she knew every story? It made horrible, bitter sense. Grass, seasons, presidents, generations - everything succumbed to a cycle of vain, monotonous futility. Why should literature be any different? There was nothing new under the sun.

Except wasn't this gathering new? Abby had asked an intelligent question, and five men had treated her with intellectual respect. When or where had she ever experienced the like? Men looked down on women, dismissed them, ignored them. Not these men, though. These men took her and Constance seriously. Abby wondered if this was really new, though, or if the "New City" of Atlanta was also just a remake of some community from an earlier time and place.

Abby listened to the group discussion for a bit, delighting in her improved ability to follow along. When she and Constance had come to Atlanta three months ago, Abby's attention wandered so frequently that people assumed something was wrong with her. It was the constant urge to _hide_; that was what people didn't understand. How could a vampire focus on social interaction while crippled by fear, distraction, and the need to go unnoticed.

That was the beauty of Constance's strategy: hide in plain sight. A person actually attracted less attention by socializing than by cowering in a closet, and it was more fun, too. Abby had tried a version of this strategy on the steamboat, but that had been a long time ago. Plus Constance knew just how to keep people from zeroing in on Abby. Constance could even distract Edward. Especially Edward.

Constance's voice rose. "Susie says no blasted ecstasy can blow memory from expectancy."

Abby shot a quick glance at Edward. The grimace on his face told Abby he had heard the name "Susie" before, knew what it meant. "It's late," Abby said, rising from her couch. "I'm getting tired, Constance, and I don't want to go upstairs alone."

Once back in their hotel room, Constance shed her clothes and began jumping on the bed. When Abby tried to get her to stop she began spinning in midair. "Nifty naked neophyte, pouty punchy vamp, crystal crunchy hematite, jiffy juicy _scamp_." She seized Abby's head, crushed the vampire's face into her throat, and began chanting, "Juicy, juicy."

Abby tore herself away. "Take your clothes off, Abby," Constance dared, pretending to fly. "Birds don't wear clothes."

Abby broke out the liquor and tobacco. "Have a smoke," Abby suggested, "and I'll hypnotize you."

"Oh, what fun."

Constance perched on the edge of the bed and began sipping a tumbler of rum. Soon the room was thick with cigar smoke, but Abby didn't mind. Constance babbled between puffs. It disturbed Abby that some of the mad girl's inanities were starting to make sense. Pregnant replies. The vampire touched a hand to Constance's temple and passed a memory into her mind.

Abby moved boldly through the coal tunnel's absolute blackness, discovering the collapsed section less than ten minutes after the alarm. Four miners were trapped. The vampire reckoned she would save three. She cleared rubble and led the men to an undamaged passage that, although unlighted, would be easy for experienced miners to follow to the surface. Then she returned to the final survivor, a man in his forties whose chest was crushed beneath rock even Abby would have a hard time lifting. She considered rousing the man. She would describe the mine explosion, ask if he had final words for his family. Fear and shame and nausea prevented her. She bared the miner's neck, tore open his jugular, and drained him dry.

By the time Abby made it back downstairs, everyone but Edward had left.

"Did the fountain run out of Coca-Cola?" Abby asked.

"No," Edward answered. "She drank Coke all day. It's just not lasting as long as it did."

"Give her more."

"There's only so much she can drink. I'm sorry, Abby."

Abby considered his protestations and realized he _was_ sorry. He knew there was something wrong with Constance. Perhaps he had always known. Abby had assumed Edward was simply attracted to Constance. Mr. Inman had assumed the same, of course. But what if it was _sympathy_ that compelled Edward to visit Constance?

"The Coca-Cola doesn't really work," Edward added, his voice filled with pain. "It makes her seem normal to those who don't know her, at least until it wears off. But if it really made her normal, she would notice the change. She would ask why she's acting and talking so differently. Coke helps her, but not enough to make her _realize_ that it helps her. She's still not...aware. She's like a child in a woman's body."

"And me?" Abby found herself demanding. "What am I?"

Edward's eyes went wide at this unexpected query. He looked at the carpet. "You're a goddess in an angel's body," he said. Then he turned and walked away.

* * *

Abby carried a bag full of champagne bottles onto the back porch of John Stith Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola. Edward was right. Soda helped Constance, but not all the way to normal. A normal girl would turn to Abby and say, "Why am I suddenly speaking in coherent sentences? Why has my imaginary friend disappeared? Why did I kill a farm boy with a set of knitting needles? Why am I sharing a room with a blood sucking devil?" All reasonable questions. Constance wasn't asking any of them.

The vampire banged on the back door for several minutes before Pemberton finally appeared. "Dr. Pemberton," Abby began. "I have questions about Coca-Cola soda. I can pay," she said, lining up four bottles of champagne on the patio tiles. "And there's this," she added, holding out a hundred dollar bill.

"What's going on, child?" the man asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "Where are your parents?"

"My parents are dead," Abby replied, keeping the money before her like a shield. "My sister and I live at Kimball House. That's why I'm here. Your brain tonic helps my sister." Abby pulled the old ad from her pocket. "She suffers from nervous affections - neuralgia, hysteria, and melancholy. The Coca-Cola helps her, but not enough. And it seems like it's helping her less, too."

"Girl, put that money away," Pemberton insisted. "This is all quite improper, you must know that. Come to my office, set up an appointment."

"I can't do that," Abby protested, setting the hundred dollar bill on the ground and placing a bottle of champagne on top to keep it from blowing away. "Please, Dr. Pemberton. I need help, and I don't know who else to ask."

The old man sighed. "Well, come in, child. I'll get you something to eat."

"No," she said, taking a step back. "Don't invite me in. Just talk to me. Please."

"You are a curious creature," Pemberton noted, drawing a pipe from his robe and popping it into his mouth. "Tell me about your sister."

Abby recounted everything she could: hallucinations, nonsensical speech, memory gaps, fears that "they" would get her, ways Coca-Cola helped, inability to notice how it helped.

Pemberton posed clarifying questions for a while, then eventually asked, "Has your sister ever been placed in an asylum?"

"I need something more than Coke," Abby replied, ignoring him. "Better than Coke. Don't you have anything?"

"I'm a chemist, not a doctor."

"Isn't it the same thing?"

Pemberton smiled. "I wish it were." He disappeared inside for a minute, then returned and handed Abby a large glass bottle. "This is dangerous stuff," he noted. "But perhaps girls who prowl the night with champagne know something of danger."

Abby opened the container. It was full of white powder. She gave a sniff. It was odorless. She put the lid back on and read the label: lithium citrate.

"Coke works right away," the chemist explained. "Not lithium. It takes weeks to work. And if you take too much it kills you. That's the problem with it. It's real hard to get the dose right."

"So how much do I give her?"

"I heard of thirty grains sending a woman into convulsions, so I'd recommend less than that."

"How much less?"

"I don't know, that's the point. Some doctors have stopped using it entirely. Say it's not worth the risk."

Abby persisted. "What's a grain?"

Pemberton vanished once again. He returned bearing a tiny pharmacist's scale. "Tell you what, young lady. Leave the champagne, but take your money, the compound, and this instrument, and we'll call it even."

Abby stashed her new treasures in her bag and said goodnight. A slow-acting medicine was not what she had come for, but if that was all the chemist had she would give it a try. Hopefully two tonics would prove better than one.

* * *

Three nights later Abby was unloading stock in the Kimball House lounge when she became aware of a man seated in a side alcove. The gas lamps had all been turned off, but that didn't matter: Abby could still tell it was Mr. Inman. A bottle of whiskey sat on the table before him. Abby watched as he filled a glass, downed it, and began pouring more.

The vampire's instincts urged her to run. She approached Mr. Inman anyway, fascinated that he had once again surprised her in the dark. When Abby reached the edge of the table Edward's father neither stood nor offered her a seat. Instead he reached down, grabbed another bottle off the floor, and set it firmly on the table before her.

At first Abby had the bizarre notion that he was asking her to drink with him. But of course that couldn't be right. She looked at the bottle more closely and read its label out loud: "Pemberton's French Wine Coca."

"This is what Dr. Pemberton cares about," Inman explained. "He only developed Coca-Cola because Atlanta went dry. But he's sold the soda formula to investors so he can focus on marketing the wine coca."

Inman paused for Abby's benefit, but she didn't know what to say.

"It's the coca that helps your sister," Inman continued. "Some patents call it cocaine. Either way, it seems to be more effective when mixed with alcohol. That's why Dr. Pemberton is more interested in Wine Coca than Coca Cola. Try it instead of the soda, Miss Abigail. See what happens. And leave poor Dr. Pemberton alone," he added. "In the future if you need help, talk to me."

Abby wasn't sure what to make of this, but for the moment it didn't matter. She turned to leave.

"My best friend and I were wounded at Shiloh," Inman said, taking another drink. "The fight moved on, and we were left lying in the field. Suffering the dying. Smelling them after they died. Clangs and odors of hell, and that was bad enough. But the thirst! I had fought in the heat of the day. Now I was bleeding. How bad I didn't know. Enough to worsen the burning in my throat.

"The hour comes when I see a girl with long blonde hair walking toward me. This doesn't greatly upset me, as I figure every wounded man on the battlefield is hallucinating by now. She wears nothing but a white nightgown. Bare feet. Skin pale, translucent like a baby's. But I think this girl has to be twelve. She kneels down beside me and puts a canteen to my lips. How happy it makes me, this blessed water, even if it's a dream. She lifts my hands to hold the canteen. Her flesh is cold, and it smells strange, but I'm too thirsty to care.

"She switches to my friend. I can't see what she's doing, but she leans over him. I hear her bite. She makes swallowing sounds. What can I do? She drinks. I drink. We drink together. Eventually my canteen is empty, and so is my friend. One thing I hear quite clearly: she breaks his neck.

"The girl in white comes back for the canteen. I grab her hand. That's when she looks me in the eye. I don't think she meant to, but once she starts she can't stop. Her face is covered in blood, but that's not what fixes me. It's her eyes, Miss Abigail. A monster's would be more bearable. But I behold a hybrid. A human being desiccated rather than eliminated. A young woman's beauty tasked as bait to feed a fiend. An enchanted princess despairing, knowing there is nothing under the sun that can set her free.

"That's when I thank God she broke my friend's neck."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 A Day in the Sun**

"If the sun touches me for a moment but no longer, I burn but I can heal," Abby explained. "Anything longer than that and I will probably die. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Miss Abby," Edward assured her. "Every precaution has been taken. This is the innermost parlor at Kimball House. The nearest windows are three rooms over, but they are north facing and so do not admit sunlight. Plus all first-floor drapes are to remain closed throughout the day. My father and I will labor from sunrise to sundown, ensuring your safety."

"Yes, please thank Mr. Inman for me. He is most kind to look after my needs." Edward bowed.

Abby snuggled deeper into her couch, nervous at the approach of dawn. She wore a burgundy dress with high collar, thick white stockings, and leather boots, plus white gloves and matching wide brimmed hat. A quilt covered her lap, while over her shoulders were draped two shawls: emergency protection that could be yanked up to shade her face.

"Have you really never stayed up past sunrise?" Edward asked.

"I have been awakened during daylight hours, as you know. But I have never voluntarily remained awake through an entire day. I'm not even sure I can. It's like I have a daily urge to hibernate. I may end up just curling into a ball and falling asleep despite all these efforts. If that _does_ happen, you must get Constance out and leave me undisturbed until after sunset."

The boy gave her a dubious look.

"I have to try," Abby said. "The lithium helps in its own way, but it's not like cocaine. Only cocaine makes Susie go away. But it helps less every day. I never knew Constance. At least, I never knew what Constance could be. Now I'm losing her. It terrifies me to think she might go back to how she was. It'd be like dying. And if she's going to die, Edward Inman, I'm at least going to make myself spend a day with her before she does."

Edward bowed again and withdrew. _Can I do this?_ Abby wondered. Neither she nor her sister were good at resisting urges. Abby had never understood the compulsion to sleep. Why wasn't it enough simply to hide from the sun? Why did she even need rest, or at least so much? Did it prove a vampire was still a person, a girl? More likely her "sleep" was mere boding, lurking, regurgitating: an unholy pause in an unholy pasture as she chewed upon a cud of slaughtered souls.

Abby sensed the sun was about to rise. She realized if she remained seated on the couch she would give in and lie down. She cast the quilt aside and began pacing. "My name is Abigail Wilson, and I am an American. I am a hunter, camp follower, actress, miner, courier, scout. I let Philip kiss me. He wanted to do special things, and I ate him. I let George kiss me. He wanted to do special things, and I ate him. I don't think Edward kissed Constance. He is seventeen and I am twelve. He would never kiss me. How old does a boy have to be before he will kiss you? How old does he have to be before he wants to do special things? Has Constance done special things? I don't want to do special things. I want a boy to kiss me and hug me and caress my face and never want to do special things. And I want to have babies."

"And a wonderful mother you will make," Constance pronounced from the doorway, Edward at her side. She swept in and gave Abby a kiss on the cheek. "You'll be serving us in here today, yes?" she asked her escort.

"Indeed, Miss Constance," Edward replied. He disappeared for a moment, then returned with a cart containing breakfast for one. This included a full glass of Pemberton's French Wine Coca, which would be Constance's second serving of the day. Abby had placed the first dose at Constance's bedside, to be consumed immediately upon waking. One positive about her sister: she always took her medicine.

Constance found a seat and began eating. "This is good," she commented. "Hungry?"

"I...ate before dawn," Abby said, marveling. "I did it, Constance. I stayed awake through a sunrise."

"Was it hard?"

"Yes. I dare not sit down. I'm sorry. Best if I keep walking, actually."

Constance paused between bites. "Abby, are you wearing a corset?"

"I...well, yes."

"That's not how to get him to kiss you."

"That's not why I'm wearing it," Abby protested, blushing. "It's extra protection."

"Uh, huh. I don't mind you kissing him. He's never going to kiss me."

"He's seventeen!"

"I don't think a big bosom's what he's looking for. I stripped for him, after all. He wouldn't even touch me."

Abby froze, her mouth open in shock. Edward had never even hinted at such an event. Of course Constance could be making it up. But given her proclivity to nudity, Abby didn't think so.

"Why don't you mind being naked?" Abby asked.

"Because I've got nothing to hide," Constance answered. "You still won't look at me, though. Always averting your eyes."

"Do I smell?" Abby pleaded, her voice almost a whisper.

"Sometimes you smell like a chamber pot."

"I use the sewers to move inventory. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean...is there a vampire smell?"

"You give me cigars, you do hypnotism, you cuddle in bed. I don't care how you smell."

"I have to wear clothes. They protect me from the sun. But I also just feel ashamed when I'm naked. Even when I'm alone."

"Then let's practice," Constance concluded, beginning to unbutton her blouse.

"Not right now," Abby said. She pushed her friend's hands aside and closed her shirt back up. Then she laughed. "That's what I want: to follow every desire and never feel ashamed."

Constance rose from her chair, cupped Abby's face, and touched foreheads. "I dream of a day," Constance said, "when you say what you really think and feel. Imagine how happy you'd be if you weren't holding so much in."

_Of course I'm holding stuff in,_ Abby thought. _What am I supposed to say to people? Hi, I have to eat someone in the next 48 hours, and I'm trying to decide if it should be you? _The undead life was nurtured on deceit. Oh, Constance knew Abby needed blood to live. And Edward knew Abby was medicating Constance. But no one person knew it all. Abby's counsels were her own, and so she was alone. Plus they died. Every family member. Every friend. Vapor, that's what they were. Vampires gobbled vapor, siphoned mist, glutted on miasma, gorged on fumes. No substance. Nothing lasted. All men were grass. Vapor grass, grassy mist, foggy...

Abby became aware of Constance hugging her, stroking her hair. How long had she drifted off? What had they been talking about? Constance had tried to undress, an apparently routine occurrence. Edward had been far more gracious than Abby had realized. His concern really had to be considered more brotherly than anything else. But why should he care to be a brother to Constance?

Absurd ideas tumbled through Abby's mind. Edward was really interested in Abby. He cared for Constance in order to keep Abby at the hotel. He liked having Abby as a business partner. He wanted to marry her and go into business together. Mr. Inman would give them the hotel as a wedding present, and they would keep Constance forever as their most honored guest. _Yes, and while we're at it we'll discover a world where man is free to speak his mind, vampires don't exist, new stories are written weekly, and nobody feels ashamed._

Eventually the girls settled for strolling hand-in-hand about the parlor. Abby plied Constance with calculated doses of wine coca, tobacco, and lithium - as well as tea and scones, of course. Constance plied Abby with questions about history.

"The changes I notice aren't what others notice most," Abby explained. "There are so many coal mines now, and sewers, too. That creates lots of additional hiding places. The telegraph is great because it makes the newspapers better. It's so important to have the latest news. The repeating rifle is the real game-changer, though. Accuracy, stopping power, high rate of fire. I used to be cautious around firearms. Now I fear them. A Winchester Model 1876 with centerfire cartridges makes a man vampire-proof."

"How did you become a vampire?"

The change in subject jarred Abby, but she answered, "My uncle bit me."

"Does different people's blood taste different?"

"Not really."

"Can you drink animal blood?"

"No."

"Do you care when a girl's having her period?"

"No. It's not the right kind of blood."

"There are different kinds?"

"Well...yes. I can drink blood from a living person, at least if it's fresh. But not from a dead person. That's the difference. There's live blood and dead blood. I'm not sure how else to explain it."

"Would you like some live blood?" Constance asked, seizing the knife from her breakfast tray and offering to stab her arm.

"No!" Abby urged. She tried to grab the implement, but Constance scooted away and pressed the blade to her throat.

"Why are you my friend?" Constance demanded. "Nobody likes me."

"Edward likes you."

Constance laughed bitterly. "I have a pretty face, and Edward feels sorry for me. Attraction wrapped in compassion. Not friendship."

Abby felt an irrational urge to stroke the knife, so deliciously close to Constance's jugular. If the vampire fed during daylight there'd be no way to escape. Both of them would be destroyed.

"You...accept me," Abby explained. "You never give me that look, that horrible, disapproving look. It's like everyone sees through my clothes. But you don't. You don't look through my clothes, so I don't have to hide. Not with you. I can let you look at me, and I know you...don't see me. That's why I'm your friend, Constance: you don't look through my clothes."

Constance nodded and returned the knife to her breakfast cart. "I'm not crazy, you know. I see things others don't see. Is that bad? For most people reality is forever obscured by numinous cloud. They see bits and pieces. But they never recognize the connections, the patterns, the relationships between everything. I see the whole web, Abby. I feel it. I absorb logic and light and meaning from a universe so understandable it makes my head spin. But for this feast of sense I return nonsense. I'm worse than a null set. I'm zero. No matter what fact you multiply me by, I turn it into nothing."

"Then I'll be a zero with you," Abby said.

"Zero times zero is still zero," Constance replied. "But zero _divided_ by zero," she mused, her face brightening, "_that's_ indeterminate. Oh, what interesting possibilities that would present. Will you be divided by me, Abby? Or vice-versa? I hardly think it matters who's on top."

"Uh, sure," Abby answered. She had no idea what Constance was talking about.

"Oh, Abby," Constance proclaimed, embracing the vampire with the strength of madness and kissing every square inch of her face. "Two known nothings can produce an undefined something. That's what we will be. Abby divided by Constance: indeterminate."

Edward served lunch and, as Abby had requested, joined the girls for the afternoon. They perused the King Arthur books recently acquired by Kimball House: _History of the Kings of Britain, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Lancelot, Le Morte D'Arthur, Idylls of the King._ Abby kept moving, one hand clutching a book, the other pinching her leg. If only the world contained a vampiric equivalent of coffee and tobacco.

Although maybe boys were better than coffee. Edward kept looking at Constance, but he kept making eye contact with Abby, too. The three of them took turns reading portions of Tennyson: "Lo now, said Arthur, have ye seen a cloud? What go ye into the wilderness to see? This Quest is not for thee. Thou hast not true humility, thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself. Then every evil word I had spoken once, and every evil thought I had thought of old, and every evil deed I ever did, awoke and cried, This Quest is not for thee."

Questions stacked in Abby's mind: Wouldn't the knights have a greater chance of survival if they searched together? Why such indirect narration - Tennyson recounting Ambrosius listening to Percivale telling about Galahad? All these people and places Galahad supposedly conquered - did they even have names? Why did everyone keep calling it a romance?

"We should write a new version," Abby blurted.

Edward raised his eyebrows, surprised. "I thought you didn't want to change it."

"I've changed my mind."

"Tell us what you're thinking," Constance said.

"Well, for starters we need to put some women in the story," said Abby. "I mean real characters, not just nuns."

"Britain is the main woman in the story," Edward explained.

"Huh?"

"The knights of the Round Table are charged with guarding Britain. She is the 'damsel in distress' they must rescue from dragons, meaning bandits and Saxons."

"But what does the grail have to do with that?" Abby asked.

"Nothing," Edward said, "and that's the point. They should ignore the grail and hold fast their duty."

"Instead Percivale makes that stupid vow," Abby observed, "and everyone follows suit."

Edward nodded. "The hardest possible test for a knight: to stay where you are. And they fail."

"For what?" Abby asked bitterly. "The grail is useless. If you're good enough to see it, you don't need it. If you need it, you're never good enough to see it. It doesn't solve anything. It's...under the sun."

"Then that's how you change the story," Constance interjected. "Make them seek a grail that's _over_ the sun."

Abby found this intriguing. "If the grail is over the sun, would that make it a new story? One that's never been told?"

"Who's the hero, who's the monster, who's the bride?" Edward asked.

"If it's a female vampire we're talking about," Constance said, "then she could be the monster _and_ the bride."

Abby halted in terror, cast her eyes to the floor, and waited for the hammer to fall. Edward refused to speak. Constance wouldn't stop babbling. A pestle of silence ground Abby against a mortar of madness, crushing her wind-chasing heart to powder. Vanity. All of it was vanity. Why had she even bothered hiding from the sun? A single word was enough to burn her life to ash.

"Let's try a game," Edward suggested. "Triple alliterations you can buy at the store."

"Burdock Blood Bitters," Constance promptly offered.

"Excellent," Edward replied. "Hale's Horehound Honey."

"Oh, that's a good one. Craig's Kidney Cure."

"Nice. Seven Sutherland Sisters."

"Botanic Blood Balm."

"Abby?" Edward asked, voice painfully kind. "Can you think of any?"

Abby finally glanced up. Edward's expression confirmed her fear. He had put the pieces together. The world had changed. He would never look at Abby the same way again.

Constance had made the entire experiment possible, of course. And Constance had ruined it. Five months' participation in Atlanta society, no one knowing or suspecting. Except Mr. Inman, of course. But he didn't count. Edward did.

"Curative Corns Cures," Abby answered.

Edward granted her a smile. Such beautiful missives, Edward Inman's smiles. Short stories knitted in aspect. Abby figured she wouldn't be reading many more.

By tea Constance grew restless. She roamed beside Abby, chewed her fingers, kept watch on the hallway. "You promised not to let them get me," Constance reminded the vampire. "You promised not to let them get me." She rolled herself along the wall. "They won't get you. Abby will help you. Abby's always sleeping. Sleep in the day. I'm not a raccoon. A raccoon for your eyes, covered in cries, coated in lies, varmint dies." She tried to take off her shirt.

Abby knelt down and shared a memory. It was a long memory, during the imparting of which Abby was totally at Edward's mercy. When she finally separated, Constance had calmed down and Edward was crying.

"Remarkable," he said. "The way you cherish and stroke her. It's like you're a part of her. You would make a wonderful mother, Miss Abigail."

Now Abby was in danger of weeping. "I need to get her to bed," she replied, lifting Constance from the floor. "Thank you for everything, Edward. It was...a perfect day in the sun."

Edward pursed his lips and nodded. Then he wiped the tears from his eyes and bowed. "You're welcome, Miss Abigail. Good night."

"Good night, Edward."

Abby received a lot of strange looks as she carried Constance toward the stairwell, but this was the fastest way to get her friend upstairs and right now the vampire wanted nothing more than the privacy of her own closet. By the time they got inside their room Constance was giggling. The girl ripped her clothes off at last and jumped on the bed. Abby pulled out the rum and cigars and leaned against the doorframe, exhausted.

"Take your clothes off, take your clothes off," the mad girl coaxed.

Abby handed over the bottle and produced a box of matches. If a vampire stayed up all day, would it cause her to sleep all night? That would probably feel even stranger than being awake during the day. Plus she had fought to stay awake. If she went to bed now, would she have to fight to stay asleep?

She lay down with Constance and held her close. Such a beautiful woman. "I love you," Abby whispered.

"One day you'll take off your clothes for someone," Constance said. "And get in bed with him."

"Sleep naked with a boy? That's crazy!"

"I mean it, Abby. No one makes you. You _choose_ to be naked. You take your clothes off. You get in his bed. That's when you know you love him."

Abby smiled. She would never sleep naked with anyone, of course. Certainly not with a boy. A sign of insanity, this tendency toward nudity. Perhaps Constance was right: the insane had nothing to hide. Abby had lots to hide. And now Edward knew. Or at least suspected. A vampire was staying at Kimball House. The guests weren't dying. But somebody was. And Edward, though unwittingly, was a part of it.

Constance passed out at last. Abby went to the window and began observing traffic. That's when it struck her: at some point in the evening, without her even realizing it, the sun had set.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 The Luminous Cloud**

"Feeling religious?" Edward asked as he drove Abby and Constance toward a hayfield east of town.

"I've decided to shift Constance's sleep schedule, at least as much as I can," Abby answered.

"I shot a raccoon," Constance offered. "It tried to eat my eggshells. Would you want a slimy crown? Listen! I don't like fried eggs."

"She does better with people around," Abby continued. "If these meetings are like others I've seen, they'll go late, and later each night. Hopefully by Sunday I'll have her going to bed so late she doesn't get up till lunch."

"I _have_ been watching out for her," Edward noted.

"I know you have. And I'm very grateful, Edward. But she's a lot to manage. If we can get her to wake up later, by the time she starts fading I'll be awake also. We can help her together."

Abby paused. She hadn't meant to say it quite like that. But the truth was she loved working with Edward Inman: running Kimball House, tending Constance, entertaining guests, writing essays. Atlanta's feather-headed debutantes could keep that courting silliness. Edward's demeanor may have been distant since Constance uttered the word "vampire," but Abby was _acting_ like his wife. Surely if the two of them worked together long enough, anything was possible.

They heard the crowd before they saw it: a goodly portion of Atlanta's citizenry belting out hymns to the accompaniment of fiddles and banjos. Abby smiled with expectation when she realized how many of the voices were male. If the men were singing as loud as the women - and on the first night, too - it was going to be a great revival.

Edward parked the buggy and led the girls to the edge of the gathering. A temporary stage had been built in front of a barn. From here the property sloped south toward a line of woods. The owner had just made hay, so the grass was short. A bonfire plus a half moon provided light.

Abby began bouncing on her feet and squeezing Constance's hand, while Constance joined in the singing. She sang with eyes closed, dancing, rocking, cheeks red and soft and deliciously alive. Her voice demonstrated some training, while still sounding earthy and innocent. Here was one person who didn't care who was listening! That made it private music, Abby realized. This was what a girl sounded like when no one was listening: intimate, centered, at rest. Abby touched Edward's hand.

He jerked away, snapping the vampire out of her reverie. "Why are you here?" he demanded.

"Why are _you_ here?" Abby challenged back.

"To see if it might help me," Edward answered, moving a few paces from Constance, requiring Abby to follow. "To see if it might help me forgive you."

"Forgive me?"

"You lied to me."

"You're attracted to Constance," Abby shot back.

"Of course I am. But I'm not in love with her. She's a child, and she's unwell."

"Of course I lied to you, Edward. I'm unwell, and I'm a child."

Edward got up close. "Prove you're not," he ordered. "Prove you're not a child."

Abby swallowed, her heart racing. "Ask me anything," she said. "I'll tell you the truth."

"Why are you here?"

"It's the only way I can go to church," Abby answered. "A girl can be out really late in this type of meeting and no one thinks it's strange. It's in the open air so I don't fell trapped. I feel more comfortable in the dark. There's anonymity. In regular church people wonder who you are and ask questions. You can move around during the service. You can stand in a different spot each night. If you're not standing near the front you can talk through the whole thing. Plus you can be emotional, and everyone accepts it. You can't show emotion in church. And the music's way better. I never could stand organs. And it's acceptable to come early and stay late."

Edward responded with a frown, which confused Abby. She was being honest. Shouldn't that make him happy?

The preacher got up and began teaching through Genesis 1. He had a good outdoor voice, projecting to the farthest edges of the crowd without sounding like he was shouting. Constance kept moving as though the music had never stopped. Abby supposed that was an additional benefit of camp meetings: you could act crazy without being noticed.

"What are you thinking?" Edward asked.

"I'm wondering what I am," Abby said as the preacher continued with his text. "Am I man created in God's image? Or am I a beast of the earth, a creeping thing, or...a winged fowl?"

Edward's eyes went wide at this, but he didn't ask the questions that had to be churning through his mind. "Sounds like everything was vegetarian at first," he offered.

"And very good," Abby added. "That leaves me out." It was a ridiculous exercise anyway, trying to fit herself in the Bible. She wasn't angel, animal, _or_ human. She was nothing. "I understand the schedule they're following. Six nights of meetings concluding Saturday, then everyone goes to church Sunday morning. After doing this all week won't people be too tired to go to church?"

"Isn't that why people go to church?" Edward suggested. "Because they're tired?"

"They should sleep if they're tired."

"There's different kinds of rest."

Abby couldn't argue with that. The speaker moved into Genesis 2. "If God made man of dust," she asked, "why is he full of blood?"

"He made him out of breath, too," Edward said.

Abby gasped and covered her mouth. What did she feed on? Blood...or breath? Was it actually a man's _life_ that she consumed? Murdering people was bad enough. Did she do something even worse? She felt like she was going to be sick. She began backing away.

Edward grabbed her hand and held her in place. "Stay with me," he insisted.

The preacher read another passage: "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"It's unfair," Abby objected. "There's only one thing I can eat." She froze, realizing she had spoken out loud. Well, Edward wanted honesty, didn't he? Maybe she should give him a good dose of it.

"I dug up a dead woman once," Abby recounted. "I forced myself to drink, but had to spit it back up. I fed on a dead Redcoat, a dead girl in Charleston, a dead Mexican in Monterrey. Always the same result: uncontrolled vomiting."

Abby waited for Edward to recoil in disgust, but he stood his ground. "Humanity had a choice," he said. "We chose to eat the fruit, and God kept his promise to curse us. He gave us death."

Abby laughed bitterly. "Is that my role, then? I'm part of the curse?"

"Probably."

She thought about hitting him, decided that would unnecessarily complicate their evening. The minister quoted: "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." _I'm the best helper you will ever find, Edward Inman._ It was a given. But so was the hopeless consummation Abby offered. She could help Edward run the hotel, but how could she give him children? Could she be naked with him and not feel ashamed? Could they become one flesh?

The stars in the sky, the rainbow-gilded sun, the very watch in Edward's pocket - all of it made chronological mockery of Abby's longings: Edward aged, she did not. Edward would one day take a help meet to himself. He had to, of course. But it wouldn't be Abby. It couldn't be Abby. You had to be human to get married. Abby belonged in some other story, in some other world. A world without consummation. A world without hope.

The preacher got to Genesis 3, and Abby perked up. This was the passage for her: the chapter with a monster.

"What is the serpent?" Abby asked. "Is it a snake? Or is it Satan talking through a snake?"

"Does it matter?" Edward replied.

"I used to wonder why the serpent doesn't just eat them. But there are worse things to do to someone than eating him."

Edward nodded. "I wonder what would happen if the serpent grabbed a fruit and shoved it down her throat."

"Well," Abby said, "besides the matter of snakes not having hands, isn't intent important? How would it be sin if she didn't mean to do it?"

Abby started rooting for Eve. _Please don't eat it._ But she did. "Hey," Abby noted. "It says Adam was with her."

"That's where the archetype comes from," Edward said. "The hero is supposed to protect the bride from the monster. Instead he stands there and lets the thing eat her. Metaphorically speaking."

Adam the hero? Definitely not. He didn't even have the guts to own up to his actions. Oh, Abby understood the desire to hide. The desperate need for covering. But blaming Eve? Abby's uncle had dared blame her. Blame _her!_ The coward had escaped before dawn, of course. He had not witnessed Abby's true fall from innocence.

God started pronouncing curses. The serpent had a seed. The woman had a seed. Why couldn't Abby have a seed? Except she _could_ reproduce: a painful truth she had learned the hard way. And if monsters were what she begot, maybe that really was her role in the story. She was just another serpent, destined to get her head crushed.

Adam returning to dust reminded Abby of the blood flaking off her dress on the way to Atlanta. Just enough blood had become removable to taunt her with the possibility of getting out the rest. What _was_ blood? Food, drink, stain, dirt, dust, mist, grass. A meal of monsters. A story already told.

A comment from the minister caught Abby's attention. "Why does God make Adam and Eve new clothes?" she asked. "They already made clothes out of fig leaves."

"I don't know," Edward said.

_God makes clothes,_ Abby thought. _Interesting_. She would pay good money for a dress no one could see through. But did God know how it felt to be naked? He didn't have a body.

The speaker brought Genesis 3 to a conclusion: "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

The preacher explained: "Adam and Eve are dead. God banishes them lest they eat from the tree of life, and then live forever in a state of death. This act of kindness indicates there is a fate worse than death: endless life in a cursed, fallen estate. Perpetual death with no hope of death. Walking corpses reeking of hell. Praise God for tempering judgment with mercy. He curses the ground once. He does not curse it twice."

Abby fell to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and began weeping. Living forever in a state of death. Perpetual death with no hope of death. Walking corpses reeking of hell. Abby _did_ have a place in the story: she was a human being cursed twice instead of once. Doomed, lost, fallen, ruined. But human. Still human. A woman. A girl.

Her crying grew louder. Maybe she _was_ a girl, but she was a girl without clothes. Without a husband. Without a future. What was worse than death? Living forever in a state of death. God had tried to keep it from happening. God had failed.

Abby felt Edward and Constance embracing her. Constance stroked the vampire's hair, petted her, cried with her. Edward didn't say anything, but he didn't pull away, either. They huddled in the grass: three humans. Two dead even though alive. One alive even though dead.

* * *

The next night Edward waited until the third hymn to ask, "Why are you here?"

"The Bible has vampires," Abby replied. "I've never paid it much mind. Except for Ecclesiastes, of course. 'Vanity and vexation, nothing new under the sun, mourning is the end of all men.' Only the cheerful stuff for me."

"Cast thy bread upon the waters," Edward quoted, "for thou shalt find it after many days." He took Abby's hand and held it tight.

They hovered at the back of the crowd with fingers intertwined, enjoying the autumn weather and listening to Constance sing. "I need to remember how music affects her," Abby said. "She was so peaceful last night. I think the hymns kept playing in her mind."

The preacher presented Leviticus as his text, and at first Abby thought it would be dull. Then she realized the theme for the evening was blood. "And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times."

The minister spent a good five minutes on the word "sprinkle." Then he demonstrated from the Bible how a person could also shed, pour, sprinkle, carry, eat, hear, take, receive, throw, require, dash, paint, offer, sacrifice, burn, avenge, lick, see, cover, suck, disclose, betray, drink, and share blood. Indeed, there seemed precious few transitive verbs that could not take blood as their direct object.

"The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground," Abby quoted. "I never heard blood speak."

"She who has ears to hear, let her hear," Edward said.

Abby pressed her hands to her abdomen. Abel's blood cried from the ground. Was her stomach made of dust? Was it full of voices? Ground could receive blood and cover it. That sounded promising. But ground was a cursed cheat; it could change its mind, and often did, disclosing the blood it had drunk.

"Without shedding of blood is no remission," the speaker emphasized. It made no sense. Abby wanted less blood, not more. She wanted to be cleansed of blood, but all this crazy preacher wanted to talk about was blood that cleansed. Blood couldn't make her clean. Blood couldn't make anyone clean. Sprinkle a bloody girl with blood and what did you get? A girl covered with twice as much blood.

"And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."

Abby had not imagined the Bible could contain something so horrible. She wandered from the crowd, mumbling. The life of the flesh is in the blood. So it was true. Vampires didn't consume flesh. They swallowed souls. They ate life itself. And how much had she eaten? At least one soul every two weeks since the attack on Fort Dobbs. Blood, life, soul. God had set his face against Abby. She was cut off.

She reached the edge of the woods, where a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned to find Edward, concerned as always.

"I don't think going in there would be the best idea," he said.

Abby tried to focus on their location. During revivals couples sometimes retreated to such places. If the two of them went in together, townsfolk would assume the worst. Indeed, Edward was taking quite a risk with his reputation walking even this far with a young woman.

"I'm sorry," Abby said. They headed back to the meeting.

"Do you know why sacrifices were offered over and over again?" Edward asked. "Because they didn't work."

The vampire scowled. "Of course they didn't work. Blood can't make you clean."

"Unless there's different kinds of blood."

Abby stopped. She had said as much to Constance during their day in the sun. "Live blood and dead blood," Abby recalled.

They rejoined Constance as the crowd began singing:

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Would you be free from your burden of sin? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you over evil a victory win? There's wonderful power in the blood.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins; and sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.

Abby found herself getting more and more frustrated. Edward must have noticed, for he took her hand and tried to encourage her. "Live blood and dead blood," he reminded her. "Just listen to the rest of the story. Maybe then it'll make more sense."

* * *

"Why are you here?" Edward asked.

"I want to know how the story ends," Abby answered.

"It's only Wednesday. You may have to wait a few nights."

"I can wait."

Except she couldn't. Fulton County's prohibition ordinance would be repealed in two weeks, eliminating Abby's source of income. Constance was approaching the point of requiring continuous supervision, despite daily consumption of two bottles of wine coca and twenty grains of lithium. The Bible had started messing with Abby's mind: Adam and Eve banished lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever, eating blood outlawed because the life was in the blood. And suddenly Edward Inman was willing to hold her hand.

"Why are you so good at business?" Edward asked.

"I'm not afraid of disapproval," Abby suggested. "I can speak my mind, knowing I have nothing to lose. And if someone stabs me in the back, I take care of it."

"Why won't you put Constance in a hospital?"

"You have to see it, Edward. The asylum. Constance would rather be dead."

"Can you keep doing it? Taking care of her?"

"I love her."

Edward acknowledged this, then hesitated. "Are you a virgin?" he asked.

_Well, it's about time,_ Abby thought. "You've seen me calm Constance," she said. "I'd like to show you how I do it." She placed a hand on Edward's face and took him into her past.

The gaunt, hooded figure of Abby's uncle approached her sleeping form. The man shook her awake, threw her onto her stomach, and began doing something horrible. Abby screamed, Abby fought, Abby tried to get away. Her uncle was too strong. Abby clawed at the sheet in futility, her cries of pain ripping the night. Then a fresh agony tore into the child: the vampire had bitten her shoulder.

Abby released Edward and looked down, fearing rejection. Yet he seemed neither shocked nor confused by what he had just experienced. And this, more than anything else the boy had done, finally convinced Abby that he _wasn't_ a boy. Edward Inman was a man.

He embraced Abby and began stroking her hair. "I'm sorry, Abby. I'm so sorry." Constance discovered they were hugging and joined in. They made a curious scene: Edward with his arms around Abby, Constance with her arms around them both. It occurred to Abby that her own arms remained at her sides, and she wondered why. Did you have to hug someone back for it to count as a real hug? Was Edward really stroking her hair? Did it matter to him that she wasn't a virgin?

The start of the sermon interrupted: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The three of them broke apart, although Edward kept hold of Abby's hand. Constance returned to her inner hymn sing, humming with eyes closed as she swayed from side to side.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."

Abby kept looking at Edward. How was he internalizing what had just happened? No two people reacted the same way to memory sharing. Constance was unique, of course: no matter how gruesome the recollection, it only ever made her happy or sleepy.

But Edward was a normal person, and he had just become a part of Abby as she was violated and murdered. Or rather transformed into a murdering devil. Becoming a murderer was infinitely worse than being murdered. Hopefully Edward was beginning to understand that.

The preacher finally caught Abby's attention, harping on the topic of eternal life. As if anyone would _want_ to live forever! Except some people did. But only because they didn't know better. Abby squatted down and felt the grass. She hated grass. It just kept growing, and getting eaten, and growing, and getting eaten. Rhythms of alleged change just bound a person in larger shackles of monotony. There was nothing new under the sun.

Edward spoke: "The grail story is really anti-Christian."

Abby blinked. "Huh?"

"You already noticed it yourself. If you're good enough to see the grail, you don't need it. If you need it, you're not good enough to see it."

"Right..."

"A holy person seeking after the holy and maybe earning a bit of God's favor. Is that Christianity? The Word become flesh and dwelt among us. Not holy people seeking God. God seeking unholy people. Offering a grail to those who _don't_ deserve it. A grail for the unholy. An unholy grail."

"But then we can't be the hero."

Edward smiled and squeezed her hand. "The hero goes on a quest to fight a battle to win a bride. Is it really so bad, having to be the bride? Especially to such a husband! Imagine a man loving you, not because you're beautiful, but despite the fact you're not. That's..."

"Unconditional love," Abby said. But she refused to accept it. There were different kinds of death, different kinds of blood. There were different kinds of love, too. And how could anyone truly love a vampire? If Edward knew, if he _knew_ her offenses, the charnel cravings of her undead lust, he would not talk of love. He would gather a mob and cast her on the bonfire. _Not_ a bride for winning. Fuel for burning. Nothing.

* * *

On Thursday evening Edward remained silent until the last song. "Why are you here?"

Abby dared to stare him in the eye. "I want to be the bride," she informed him.

This pleased Edward. "Has anyone ever loved you?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Have you ever loved anyone?"

Now _that_ was a complicated question. A hundred years roaming America as an undead blight, and she had loved...whom? Had she _ever_ loved? "I...don't know," she answered.

Edward took her hands and studied her face as best he could in the low light. "Can you stay?" he asked.

"Can you leave?"

"My duty is to my family. To my community. The Inman household is rebuilding Atlanta. We will make it one of the great cities of the Union."

"The knights who stayed behind with Arthur," Abby observed. "No one remembers their names."

Edward released her. "That's what makes the test so cruel. It's unromantic to stay behind and guard the roads. The travelers don't care, though."

"How is running a hotel guarding the roads?"

"If I'd been off chasing the grail, we never would have met. You found me in the way of duty. In the way of duty I will remain."

Constance ran to Abby and grabbed her hand. "Abby, _listen_," she urged. "Listen!"

Abby realized the sermon had already started, and that Constance wanted her to pay attention. She tried to shift her attention.

"And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him. They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Sick people were invited to the stage to receive prayer for healing. Constance jumped up and down with excitement. "Come on, Abby," she urged, trying to pull the vampire forward. "Come _on_. They'll cast the devil out of you. You'll be healed!"

Abby doubled over and vomited. Clots of rot and filth poured from her mouth, splattering the grass. It smelled so horrible it made her vomit more. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, dry heaving dust as spasms wracked her abdomen.

She could hear people screaming and throwing up, adding the odor of acid to the basic ash Abby had just expelled. The extremis of hunger throttled her cramping stomach. If she didn't feed at once she would lose all control over who she ate. She began crawling toward the tree line.

She found a couple spending time in the woods. Abby consumed both of them, then tore their limbs off, desperate for a few extra drops. Eventually she made her way to a stream and collapsed in the water. It felt nice, this innocent liquid flowing over her body. But she couldn't drink it.

What had happened? Abby pondered for a long time, till her face broke out in a brilliant smile. She had seen a vision. A vision wrapped in luminous cloud. The holy grail had appeared at last, and Abby knew what it was: a cure for Constance.

It embarrassed Abby that the grail had been forced to appear to her. She should have figured it out on her own. Cocaine was not a cure, but it helped. And if one medicine could help Constance, another medicine could heal her. It was simply a question of finding it.

The vampire began walking toward town. A quest. A quest to find the grail. Money was the key, of course. In a new city money could buy anything. She would have to make a _lot_ of money. And then...she would buy the grail.

She reached the alley beside the hotel and discovered Edward in a buggy. He did not look well.

"Edward, what are you doing?"

He covered his face with a handkerchief. "Get in the back," he husked.

Abby felt confused, but did what she was told. Edward leaned over the side and retched, though nothing came up. "You're sick," Abby protested. "You shouldn't be out."

"Stay down," Edward barked. "And don't speak." He drove for ten minutes, till they were beyond the street lights. Then he pulled into the back of a building with a large receiving dock.

Edward got down and banged on a wooden door. An elderly woman opened to him. He turned and motioned for Abby to get out. "This is my aunt, Mrs. McDougall," Edward introduced. "Do what she says." Then he escaped inside.

Mrs. McDougall opened the loading door. "Follow me," she ordered.

Abby passed through basement storage into a dark, tiled room built around a porcelain counter. The lights came on and Abby realized where she was: an embalming chamber. Edward had brought her to a mortuary.

"You need to bathe," Mrs. McDougall explained. "Sit on the table and use this hose. The water washes down the drain, straight into the sewer. I've got soap and detergent. Here is lye, too, if you think it will help. If you need assistance, I am...accustomed to the smell."

Abby just stared. Mrs. McDougall excused herself and shut the door.

What was happening? Did they really expect her to undress in this place? She approached the embalming table, discovered a mirror on the ceiling. Her body and clothes were covered in blood. Damp with water, too. Had she fed at the revival? That would be a disaster. Although she looked so skeletal she found it hard to believe she had eaten anything.

Abby felt numb and distracted, but she removed her clothes, got the water running, and took her place on the table. She scrubbed and scrubbed, using every detergent and chemical the funeral home had to offer. The mirror reflected her starving, undead pallor into her empty, undead eyes. The bathtub of the dead. Perhaps if the mortician's wife returned, Abby could eat her. Not many corpses got to do that.

The door cracked open. A hand began pushing bottles into the room: rum, whiskey, champagne, wine coca. Except these bottles were corked. Abby rushed from the table, pulled a cork, and began guzzling. Warm, breathy, salty life. Where did it come from? It didn't matter. She drained container after container, fourteen bottles, the equivalent of three men.

Now towels and a fresh dress came through the door. Abby made herself presentable in time for Mrs. McDougall's reappearance. The lady took her upstairs, where Constance and Edward stood waiting in a parlor. Both had bandages on their left arms.

"Dr. Pemberton must have taken blood from thirty people," Edward said. "You look a lot better."

Constance settled on a couch. "I want to go home," she mumbled.

"Sleeping syrup," Edward explained. "Her words...we couldn't have people hearing what she was saying."

"What was she saying?"

"You threw up, Abby."

"I threw up? Why?" Then an additional question occurred to her. "_What_ did I throw up?"

"Two people are dead, a man and a woman."

"Do they know who did it?"

"We're not sure. Dozens of people got sick, so in that sense you didn't stand out. But we think Constance was seen with the bodies. She...rearranged the pieces. There are marshals at Kimball House, waiting to question both of you. You have to go away. Immediately."

"I saw the grail, Edward. I saw the grail!"

"What?"

"I kept thinking it was an object. But it's medicine. Medicine for Constance. I'm going to find it, Edward, and I'm going to heal her. I know you can't come. You have your family. But I can find the grail and come back. Isn't that what the knights did? They left Camelot. But they came back. Once Constance is healed, everything will be so much easier. You'll see."

Edward shook his head. He helped Constance up, led the girls outside. There they found Mr. Inman standing beside a loaded carriage. He handed Abby a purse.

"That's a thousand dollars in notes," he explained. "There's another thousand in gold in your trunk. And you've got tonic for Constance in there, too. I reckon at least a month's worth." He passed her two tickets. "Take the cotton train to Chattanooga. My people know to leave the last car unsearched. Then use the tickets to board for Sante Fe."

Abby tried to thank him, but Mr. Inman refused to hear it. "Next time you see me, Miss Abigail." He tipped his hat and stepped aside, while Edward got Constance into the carriage.

"I would have preferred a better parting feast," Abby said.

Edward seemed to swear under his breath. "Just because you see a vision doesn't mean you have to follow it."

"I can do this, Edward. If the cocaine helps her some, another medicine will help her more. The cure is out there. I'm going to find it."

Edward looked so sad and helpless and confused. Abby wondered what to say. "I'm sorry. I didn't want it to be this way. We both knew I couldn't stay. Not forever. I will write, every chance I get. Just save a room for us. And keep my seat at the round table. Because I'll be back, Edward Inman. I promise you: I'll be back."

Edward leaned down, took Abby's hair in his hand, and kissed her on the mouth. Then he pressed his forehead to hers. "So Constance is the bride. I guess that makes you the hero."

Abby grimaced. "And the monster."

Edward pulled her to himself. Abby let her hand touch his hair, his face, his back. "I didn't want to be the hero _or_ the monster," she whispered. "I just wanted to be the bride."

Edward gave her a final kiss and spoke: "May God grant you to be all three."


End file.
